ABBOTSFORD FROM THE RIVER.

After a Recent Photograph.

BBOTSFORD was bought by Sir Walter Scott in 1811, and he resided there from 1812 until his death. It is situated on the Tweed, about three miles above Melrose.

The features of the Dean have been preserved in several paintings, busts, and medals In youth he was reckoned handsome, Pope observed that though his face had an expression of dullness, his eyes were very particular. They were as azure, he said, as the heavens, and had an unusual expression of acuteness. In old age the Dean's countenance conveyed an expression which, though severe, was noble and impressive. He spoke in public with facility and impressive energy; and as his talents for ready reply were so well calculated for political debate, it must have increased the mortification of Queen Anne's ministers, that they found themselves unable to secure him a seat on the bench of Bishops. The government of Ireland dreaded his eloquence as much as his pen.

His manners in society were, in his better days, free, lively, and engaging, not devoid of peculiarities, but bending them so well to circumstances that his company was universally courted. When age and infirmity had impaired the elasticity of his spirits. and the equality of his temper, his conversation was still valued, not only on account of the extended and various acquaintance with life and manners, of which it displayed an inexhaustible fund, but also for the shrewd and satirical humor which seasoned his observations and anecdotes. This, according to Orrery, was the last of his powers which decayed, but the Dean himself was sensible that, as his memory failed, his stories were too often repeated. His powers of conversation and of humorous repartee were in his time regarded unrivaled; but, like most who have assumed a despotic sway in conversation, he was sometimes silenced by unexpected resistance. He was very fond of puns. Perhaps the application of the line of Virgil to the lady who threw down with her mantua a Cremona fiddle is the best that ever was made:

"Mantua, væ misera nimium vicina Cremona!»

The comfort which he gave an elderly gentleman who had lost his spectacles was more grotesque: "If this rain continues all night, you will certainly recover them in the morning betimes:

"Nocte pluit tota - redeunt spectacula_mane.»

His pre-eminence in more legitimate wit is asserted by many anecdotes. A man of distinction not remarkable for regularity in his private concerns, chose for his motto, "Eques haud male

notus." "Better known than trusted," was the Dean's translation, when someone related the circumstance.

Swift had an odd humor of making extempore proverbs. Observing that a gentleman, in whose garden he walked with some friends, seemed to have no intention to request them to eat any of the fruit, Swift observed, it was a saying of his dear grandmother,

"Always pull a peach

When it is within your reach,”

and helping himself accordingly, his example was followed by the whole company. At another time, he framed an "old saying and true" for the benefit of a person who had fallen from his horse into the mire:

"The more dirt,

The less hurt."

The man rose much consoled; but as he was a collector of proverbs himself, he wondered he had never before heard that used by the Dean upon the occasion. He threw some useful rules into rhyming adages; and indeed, as his "Journal to Stella" proves, had a felicity in putting rhymes together on any trifling occasion, which must have added considerably to the flow and facility of his poetical compositions.

In his personal habits he was cleanly, even to scrupulousness. At one period of his life he was said to lie in bed till eleven o'clock, and think of wit for the day; but latterly he was an early riser. Swift was fond of exercise, and particularly of walking. And although modern pedestrians may smile at his proposing to journey to Chester, by walking ten miles a day, yet he is said to have taken this exercise too violently, and to a degree prejudicial to his health. He was also a tolerable horseman, fond of riding, and a judge of the noble animal, which he chose to celebrate, as the emblem of moral merit, under the name of Houyhnhnm. Exercise he pressed on his friends, particularly upon Stella and Vanessa, as a sort of duty; and scarce any of his letters conclude without allusion to it; especially as relating to the preservation of his own health, which his constitutional fits of deafness and giddiness rendered very precarious. His habit of body in other respects appears to have been indifferent, with a tendency to scrofula, which, perhaps, hastened his mental